The Once and Future King
by Nonchey Niente
Summary: My take on what might happen after "Visions"


****

I'm afraid I have no idea who owns the rights to the characters of the television series of The Dead Zone, so I assume it is a mixture of Stephen King, The USA Network, Piller2 and Lions Gate.

The ideas, however...are mine. Don't blame anyone else.

This fiction has been created purely for my own enjoyment. However, if anyone would LIKE to pay me for it I am always open to offers.

Spoilers: Don't read this if you haven't seen "Visions". 

Rating: PG13 for some graphic violence in the first scenes. 

There is also one (or maybe two) rude word. But he jolly well deserves to be called that.

The Once and Future King

__

The boy in the cave was careless and rang the great bell. Arthur stirred from his long sleep and called - "Is the time come for me to return?"

"No!" cried the boy, "The time is not yet! Sleep on, brave King!"

- British Folk Tale

Paulo Alberto Cerranti was not a name he used professionally. There were already _far _to many Italian Americans littering the pages of Variety magazine with their bad-boy-done-well good looks. Paulo had taken the stage name Philip Fitzjohn, hoping that an English name might attract the attention of agents and directors looking for the next Hugh Grant.

This plan had not been successful.

Well, let's face it: Nothing much in his life had been successful. His dad was dead right from the start and he was ignored by his mother, so naturally he grew up always looking for attention. Acting in movies, theater or television seemed like an easy way to get it. His career so far consisted of an understudy role in an off-Broadway show that folded after less than four weeks, and a toilet cleaner commercial for Cable. He'd been made to wear a luminous orange wig and silver space suit, a parody of some 1960s science fiction super hero. But the only Klingons he was obliterating were in the toilet bowl. 

He had the wrong face, the wrong build, the wrong hair. He really didn't fit. Paulo started a gradual decline into a gentle kind of madness; depression. He stayed indoors and unplugged the phone so he wouldn't be listening for it to ring and then be disappointed by the silence. He took to walking his dog in the small hours of the morning when the streets were empty. 

He was a lonely man, although perhaps he didn't really know it. Paulo was like someone with senile decay - the disintegration obvious to those on the outside, but the patient themselves blissfully unaware of the condition. Since his mother died, he'd lived alone in their two-room apartment in Springfield, Massachusetts. So there was no one to notice the changes in him.

He had never been any good with women. Curious, Paulo tried his luck with a man instead. It wasn't a carefully thought-out decision, or even one that required a great deal of passion - it was more a morbid curiosity than anything else. Just something he had to try, that's all.

This plan had not been successful.

It had all ended miserably when he had been caught in a back alley outside ClubXtraordinary in Chestnut Avenue. Now, three weeks later, he was being charged with a felony. The papers were there in his hands. Dates for a court appearance. Notes about legal assistance for those who couldn't afford it.

Criminality was the one stigma Paulo couldn't bear.

So, he went out the next morning, blinking myopically in the bright sunshine that he had become unaccustomed to, and took a bus downtown. He's found the armoury store one night when he was out with the dog. The form-filling for the little single-shot derringer was simple. Loading and maintenance, as demonstrated by the salesman, was simple.

So far, this plan was successful.

He took the dog to the pound and claimed it was a stray he had caught crapping on his front steps. They took it in without question, even when the dog whined and yelped as Paulo walked away, its tail thumping on the concrete floor of the cell pathetically, trying to endear itself back into familiar human company.

Paulo walked back to his apartment. All his cash had gone on the gun and the bullets. None left for the bus. But no matter, it was a nice enough day. The sunlight reflected sharply off the wet streets where it had rained the night before.

When he got home he turned off the gas supply in the kitchen and the water by the stopcock under the sink. Then he showered for a long time, until all the hot water had emptied out of the tank, and dressed in his last set of clean underwear - a blue t-shirt and a pair of y-fronts that might have been white, once. He closed all the windows and pulled the curtains. He was very thorough.

From a battered plastic suitcase, yanked out from under his virgin-narrow single bed, he took a waterproof sheet he'd used as a boy to stop his constant bedwetting from destroying the mattress. It was a little mildewed, but that didn't seem to be important. He dragged the sheet into the living room and laid it over the back of his mother's favourite wing armchair. 

Then he loaded the derringer, sat down in the armchair, stuck the gun into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Even in suicide, he was a failure. The bullet blew off most of his nose and his left eye simply exploded. His lips and soft palate disappeared entirely, and the little bullet pushed up through the heavy bone of his forehead to exit the top of his head, just at the level of his prematurely-receding hairline. But he didn't die. Not completely, anyway.

So, no; the name Paulo Cerranti was not a name he needed to use any more. But it was the name Johnny Smith read on the chart at the end of his bed in the long-term care facility in the Holyoke Hospital. Paulo had been in a coma for two years. He showed some vague brain activity, and possible indications that he might be on the verge of re-awakening. 

Also, his records showed he had fallen off his bike when he was 7 years old and had a crack to the back of the head that needed five stitches. Therein lay John Smith's interest.

"Does it matter that the bullet injury is to the front of the brain rather than the back, like mine and Wey's?" he said softly, with respect, as though the ruined man in the bed was merely sleeping and he didn't want to wake him.

Dr. Weizak drew in and released a large sigh. "We don't know enough yet. That's essentially why we are here. Now it's just a question of waiting until he surfaces - if he ever does."

"Have you organised someone to watch him?"

"Yes. It wasn't difficult. People are quite easily bought if you offer the right price."

Johnny thought again about all the money he was spending and decided the time was right to contact Purdy when he got home. The wreck of man in the hospital bed slept on, as though waiting for the toll of the bell to rouse him.

oOo

"Are you sure?" asked The Very Reverend Gene Purdy.

His assistant nodded, his face solemn. "Yes sir. He's suing us. Well, you - to be specific."

A prickle of perspiration broke out on Purdy's forehead. His glasses slipped to the end of his nose and teetered there, on the brink of oblivion. He took them off and wiped his face with a handkerchief.

"Astonishing, " he muttered. "Of all the gall - John Smith, suing me. Me!" Purdy checked himself. "Thank you Atkins, I don't need you any more today. I'll issue an instruction when I've had a chance to mull things over a little more. Leave the paperwork with me, will you?"

Atkins left. Purdy sighed and picked up the telephone, feeling a headache going around knocking on doors in his skull. What on earth was Johnny Smith thinking? He put the phone down again and pulled the bundle of papers towards him slowly, as though they weighed far more than a few sheets really would.

The blue and white legal papers had a hand-written note in Johnny's distinctive bold capitals attached to them. "Gene - sorry to spring this on you, but you've got to believe I have everyone's best interests at heart."

Purdy was incensed. What was the boy playing at? But his anger was matched by his curiosity. In spite of everything, Purdy still trusted Johnny's instincts, and it was a hard habit to break.

oOo

The unknowing object of Purdy's ire, John Smith lowered his gaze and looked at Christopher Wey's wife. He saw that the last week or so had not been kind to her. 

"I'm not sure I can go on living around here, Johnny." she said in a whisper. Johnny was making a list of her appearance, noting the signs of a woman wracked with grief and worry. Had Sarah looked like this, waiting for him, seven years ago? Haggard. No makeup. Hair lank and tired. Winding the leather fob of her house keys endlessly through her fingers. "I'm thinking a lot about moving away."

"What about your daughter?" Johnny asked. "How's she taking it?"

"She's stronger than I am. Julia's stubborn, like Chris. She's refusing to think that her daddy may not come back."

Johnny nodded. He sensed that Madeleine Wey needed time to think. Time was a luxury she hadn't had much of since her husband had been attacked and nearly killed, three weeks ago. Perhaps talking to Johnny would help her set her thoughts about moving away from New York into the proper perspective. 

He'd decided that the time wasn't right to tell her about his visions - she had more than enough to get used to as it was. So, Johnny kept quiet, soaking up her words like a sponge.

He picked up his cane by the shaft, stared at the head for a moment, then gripped it. Wey seemed to be standing in the corner of the room, holding his own version of the same handle. He was in time to hear his wife say -

"I don't want to stay around here any more Johnny. My mom and I don't get on, and I've got this police investigation hanging over my head the whole time."

"Do they really still suspect you hired Lance Foster to kill Christopher?" Johnny's lips peeled back from his teeth in a grimace of disgust. "That's crazy."

"Yes, I'm still under the microscope. He had my envelope full of cash on him when he was arrested, plus the photographs of Chris, plus notebooks full of his 'observations'. He really hated Christopher. The whole thing was planned. I just don't understand why." Maddy sighed. She was genuinely unaware of how attractive she had been to Lance Foster. "Julia starts up school in a few weeks. I'm not looking forward to the stares and whispers in the schoolyard. This is a NICE neighbourhood, John. People don't get brained with their own fire-irons in White Plains. It just doesn't happen."

Wey spoke softly to Johnny in his head. "Get her to move to your house. That way I can see her almost all the time. Get her and Julia to move to Maine with you. Do it, Johnny. Make it happen." Wey's tone was half menacing, half pleading.

Johnny's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. It was his only reaction to the sudden pressure on his nerves. After a moment he realised the sense in what Wey was saying. He cleared his throat.

"Why not come to Cleaves Mills?" he said. "You and Julia. My house is enormous. You can live there for a while. It'd give you a break." He tried to make the suggestion sound casual.

"You mean, move away from Christopher? No, I don't think so, John. But thanks for the offer."

"Why not? It makes sense. You've no idea how long he'll be in a coma. In Maine you'll only be a few hours away. Anyway..." Johnny glanced over at Wey's dark figure, haunting the corner of Maddy's kitchen. "You don't even know for sure he's going to stay in that hospital."

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Well, I didn't, for one thing. They moved me on to a long-term care facility after a week or so. C'mon Maddy. If it doesn't work out you can always move back here. Rent this house out. Think about it, will you?"

"OK, I'll think about it." Maddy smiled wanly at him. He really was a very kindly man, this Johnny Smith.

oOo

Washington DC was a shattered ruin. 

Wey camped in the Museum of American History off Madison Avenue. How stupid it was to be living in those ruins, shortly after American history had in fact _ended_. All around him were the remains of buildings that were so ironic it made him laugh. The Museum of Natural History. Not much of that left, now. The National Air and Space Museum; no use. Even - oh, ultimate irony of ironies! - The National Archives. Wey had hoped this building would vomit up some clue as to how the world had got like this, but everything inside the shattered walls, like a blackened tongue behind rows of broken teeth, had been burnt.

Wey wrestled with the terror that his new psychic powers inflicted on him. He got visions from lots of things, but they were always fragments; landscapes lit by flashes of lightening on a moonless night.

He came to understand that people had died with no real knowledge of what had happened to them. Their last moments were encased in ignorance, just as the mummies at Pompeii had had their bodies silted over in a thick plaster-cast of ash. There was pain, horror, anger, disbelief, fear, but never any understanding.

After a short while Wey learnt not to touch corpses any more.

The bodies were not rotting. Many of them seemed desiccated. Hollow. As though they had been baked slowly in a cool oven. Soft tissue caved in and flesh shrank, stretching over the bones underneath like the skin over a drum. There was no corruption, which Wey found partly a relief but also disturbing, as though the very bacteria in the air had been wiped out by - 

Wey realised he had no name for whatever it was that had caused this. 

'Armageddon' seemed too weak a word. It described a known quantity, a documented series of events at the End of the World. Armageddon was not a mystery, like this was.

Wey started thinking of it as The Event. Even that sounded stupid, like some sporting 'meet' or a 1960's 'happening'. It needed a new word! Wey thought that maybe the only part of the human race left to evolve now would be the language.

Not that there was anyone much to talk to, except Johnny Smith. Wey was starting to hate Johnny Smith. Much as he longed for those times when he could peek at his family's life through Johnny's eyes, he resented the role that the other man was taking. He remembered the episode in the police station in New York when Smith had accused him of having the life that _he_ had lost, and how he was busily pissing it all away.

Now the tables were turned. Wey understood Johnny's emotions from that day perfectly, exquisitely. He remembered Smith's accusing finger, pointing straight into his future. "Don't go back to the house, ok?" Why had he said that? If Wey had not been attacked gone into a coma, Smith would have no one to help try and stop the Event. Why would he sacrifice that possibility in order to let Wey carry on living normally? What the hell did he care anyway?

Christopher Wey used his teeth to rip open a box of crackers he had found. He spit the plastic out with more vehemence than was really necessary. To top it all, Johnny Smith was a man of principle. 

God, how he hated him.

oOo

"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny - if it was money you needed," said Purdy smoothly into the telephone receiver. His voice was dressed in its sympathetic Sunday best.

"No, Gene. Not just any money, MY money. My mother's money."

"John, your mother left money in trust to pay for your care, whilst you were in a coma. The rest she left to Faith Heritage. She knew she was going to die, Johnny. She had to make sure that you would still have sufficient funds to keep you comfortable for however long...however long it took. Your mother trusted me with that money, even made me your guardian, and now you're being disrespectful to her memory. You are not just suing me Johnny - you are suing your own mother's last will and testament, don't you see that?"

For a few moments, Purdy could only hear the slight crackle and hum of distance on the telephone. It was a perfect symbol of the gap opening up between two men who had never, even at the best of times, been close. Purdy wondered if he was calling Johnny's bluff by playing the "Mother's Last Wish" card. 

"Think, Johnny. You won't just be hurting me personally. That money is earmarked and invested already to do God's work - in the University, in the new library, in Greg Stillson's campaign... I have fiscal responsibilities that I have to honour. I can't simply sign the money back to you now." Purdy lowered his voice slightly. "Think about what would happen if the truth about how your mother died were to be made public."

Was he shooting himself on the foot, bringing that up? No one had more to lose than he did, considering his role in covering up the circumstances of Vera Smith's death. Suicide. If that were known, Purdy would be discredited, and probably sued by Vera's life insurance company.

"I'm sorry," said Johnny. "I'm just not convinced Mom would've approved of the money being used for political ends. It's all part of a much larger process, Gene - you gotta understand that. It's nothing, you know, nothing personal."

"Johnny, I am not about to go against your mother's wishes on this subject. She and I discussed this at very great length before she died."

"I'm sorry too, Gene. I truly am. But I don't want any more money spent on Stillson."

Johnny put the phone down and turned to look at Dana Bright, who was pretending to be absorbed in Johnny's "Maine Through The Seasons" calendar on the wall. 

"I take it you heard all that, Dana?"

"Naturally. I'm pretty good at filling in the gaps, too. One of the tricks of the trade, you know."

There was a silence. Dana looked candidly at Johnny, noting the deepening of the frown lines between his brows. She tried to remember when she had last seen him smiling. She couldn't. 

"What exactly is it you don't like about Stillson? B.O.? Bad ties? Wrong hockey team?" she asked.

"Can't you guess? You must know about as much about him as anyone, Dana."

"Oh, I never said I was his biggest fan. I just wondered if you knew something about him that I don't - something that you might just be willing to share with your favourite small-town reporter?" Dana's face cracked into a wide, ingratiating smile.

Knowing that his eyes were his best weapon in a situation like this, Johnny set them on stun and fired a warning shot across Dana's bows. She held up her hands in mock surrender.

"OK, OK. I'll get our legal department to contact you." she said. "First we'll need a basic contract. We'll agree to fund your fight against Purdy in exchange for exclusive rights to every story about you from now until - I don't know, how about doomsday. Nothing to worry about. Merely a formality. You're just selling your soul to the Devil." She smiled at him again, hoping for a return in kind. There were several things about Johnny Smith that Dana Bright admired, and his smile was near the top of the list. 

She was rewarded. She left with a spring in her step.

oOo

"Are you sure?" said Sarah Bannerman, lengthening her stride to keep up with Dana Bright.

"Of course I'm sure. Would I report something that wasn't true?"

Dana was smiling to herself. It felt good to get one over on Sarah Bannerman, to know something about Johnny Smith that the other didn't.

"I can't even be bothered to make a clever reply to that statement." said Sarah.

"Sarah, you cut me to the core."

"I doubt you even HAVE a core Dana - so you're really not kidding me?"

"Nope. He went to New York, got arrested, got Purdy and your husband to vouch for him - didn't Walt tell you? Got released, witnessed a local guy getting beaten up in a burglary, and now the guy's wife and kid are moving in Chez Smitty." Dana widened her eyes and said in a melodramatic undertone: "And nobody knows _why_."

"But you're going to find out, aren't you Dana."

"Do you really need to ask?"

"No, I don't suppose I do."

Dana's route took her in another direction, so she peeled away from Sarah and crossed the street without another word. She was a woman on a mission. Sarah tried to carry on with her errands, but found it hard to concentrate on anything other than Dana's words - "The guy's wife and kid, moving in Chez Smitty." They lingered in her head, like a bad smell.

oOo

Madeleine and Julia Wey moved in with Johnny Smith two weeks later, before the fall semester started. Julia was enrolled in JJ's school and after that, everything happened very fast. Maddy felt like a basketball spinning on the end of someone's finger.

Julia wasted no time in making Johnny's childhood bedroom her own. She set out rows of stuffed animals on the bed and stacked her books on the shelves opposite the window. The animals had to be arranged in order of importance, or she knew they would squabble when she was at school. The books had to be in order, too - the largest ones on the left, sloping down to the smallest ones at the other end of the shelf.

As she was working, a noise from the garden attracted her attention and she pulled back the net curtains to see Mr. Smith and her mother having a "heated exchange" about something. The words "heated exchange" were Julia's favourites at the moment, having come across them a few days ago in the book 'Anne of Green Gables'. Now she searched for every opportunity to use the words herself. 

She fiddled with the catch of the window, pushing it open so she could hear what was being said.

"...so what do you expect me to do, sit around here all day painting my nails and pruning your roses?" her mother was saying. Her voice was a pitch or two higher than usual, which was how it went when she was mad. Johnny's back was to Julia, but she was smart enough to judge from the set of his shoulders that he was irritated. "I'm not cut out for that sort of thing John. I went back to work when Julia was two years old. I am not your average sit at home type. I need to be doing something. Anything."

The rigours of the day caught up with Johnny in the form of a yell of pain from his leg. He backed up a few paces and sat down on the ornamental planter behind him.

"Well, Maddy, as a matter of fact, I do need some help. Since I started suing him, Gene Purdy has stopped handling my mail. So now I've got that business - well, more of a fan club really - to run." Johnny leaned heavily on his cane, his eyes unfocussed, as he considered the weight of what that entailed. "All in all, I could use some help. You and Julia could use a place to live. Why can't we make that work? Is it a deal?"

Julia could see Maddy staring intently at Johnny, her lips pursed, her arms folded defensively across her chest. She didn't like the expression on her mother's face. Julia very badly wanted to stay in Cleaves Mills. She liked the house with its enormous garden, and she liked Johnny. She liked him the first time she'd seen him, at the house in White Plains. And he spoke in French to her. No one else in her family did that. His eyes were always kind, even if the rest of his face looked tired or sad, like sometimes grownup's faces do, and he made her feel a bit better about daddy. 

After all, if Johnny could get better, maybe her father could too.

oOo

Dana Bright went first to see Gene Purdy. They walked together in the grounds of the Faith Heritage University.

"Dana. How fortuitous you coming to see me like this today. I need to ask you a little favour."

"Oh, Gene. It's been so long since I heard those words from you." 

Dana's expression was arch, her voice sarcastic. "Let me guess - " She closed her eyes and held one hand to her forehead in a parody of one of those fakes on the Psychic Network she loved watching. "Ahhhh - yes, the message is coming through now...find out what it is Johnny Smith needs to spend his own money on so suddenly. Has he developed a crack cocaine habit, been consorting with expensive prostitutes, taken up motor racing and international career gambling?"

"You have evidently spent far too much time with Johnny. His psychic abilities are - er, rubbing off on you. You read me like a book. Dana -" 

Purdy stopped walking suddenly and caught her arm, pulling her back to look at him. The conversation was taking a more serious turn. "I only have Johnny's well-being at heart. The gifts God has given to him make him very special, Dana." Purdy relaxed, seeing that he was being perhaps a little too serious, but not before Dana Bright had recognised the fear in his eyes. She realised as well as he did that without the Smith legacy, Gene Purdy stood to loose everything. Purdy tried to backtrack, covering his unease with an attempt at humour. "Johnny Smith has greater things ahead of him than crack cocaine and loose women!"

"Well, let's hope so Reverend."

They started walking again. 

"Dana, does that mean you don't know what it is Johnny wants the money for?"

"I don't think it's so much that he wants the money, Gene. I reckon it's more to do with the fact that he doesn't want Greg Stillson to have it."

"Ah. Stillson, yes. I don't understand this. I thought Johnny was happy to show his support for Greg. They make a wonderful combination - two gifted, energetic young men who have overcome enormous odds and together stand for all that is missing in the modern world - "

Dana diplomatically stifled a yawn. 

"Together they would be perfectly unbeatable in an electoral campaign. I thought I had Johnny sold on the idea."

"No, Gene. He doesn't like Stillson. Looks pretty solid about that to me. If you want my advice - and I know you don't, but I'm gonna give it to you anyway - you'll have to make a decision pretty soon about which one of these 'gifted, energetic young men' you want by your side when it comes to it. I know which man MY money would be on."

Gene Purdy gave Dana an old-fashioned look over the top of his glasses. "I don't know about keeping your money on him Dana, but I would like you to keep your eyes and ears on him, please."

"No problem. It's what I do best. Need some help making your decision, do you?"

"I don't know if there is a decision to be made yet, frankly."

"Gene, trust me for once on this one. It's Johnny or it's Stillson. You can't have them both."

oOo

That evening, Johnny poured a generous slug of whisky into a heavy tumbler, listening with satisfaction to the cracking squeal of the ice cubes as they struggled against the influx of the warmer liquid. He was developing quite a taste for the 12-year old Scotch that his mother had kept in the house. He assumed she had it for Gene Purdy to drink when he visited.

Johnny swirled the whisky in the glass, coating the ice cubes and dulling the acid fire of the alcohol. He sat down in the centre of the sofa and started trying not to think about everything that had happened. His meditations were interrupted by Madeleine.

"Hey, John" she said.

"Hey. Do you want one of these?"

Maddy sat on the piano bench, picking out an exercise she remembered from childhood on the dusty keyboard. Johnny finished his drink. She pointedly didn't answer his question, and Johnny knew this wasn't a social call.

"What I don't understand, " she said slowly, her face a study in concentration, "and it amazes me that I haven't asked this question before now, is what your original connection to my husband and family was."

Johnny nodded. He leaned forward and put his empty glass on the coffee table. Here it comes, he thought.

"You came from nowhere, seeming to know Chris, but not to know him...then there was that other guy with you - what was his name?"

"Bruce."

"Bruce, yeah. You both come to the house, saying you were going to tell me something crucial. The next thing I know, you're throwing my glassware round and running out of the house screaming at me to lock the doors. Did you know something about Lance Foster? "

Johnny sighed heavily. The whisky chased its tail through his veins, warming him, but not quieting him down as he had hoped it would.

"Maddy, to cut a very, very long story short, 7 years ago I was in a car wreck. I was in a coma for a long time. When I woke up a couple of years ago I discovered that my brain had started working in a new way and now... now, well..." He faltered. No matter how many times he told this story, it almost never sounded any more plausible to him. He could see most people's scepticism before he even finished his sentence. "And now - I see things. When I touch something or someone, I sometimes get visions of their past or their future. "

"Are you telling me you think you're some kind of psychic?" Maddy's incredulity was unrestrained. Johnny's heart sank. Only a precious few people had a different reaction.

"Yes, I am."

"A 'psychic', you say. Ha! - and I've brought my daughter to live in the same house with you." she rolled her eyes in disgust at her own poor judgement.

Johnny noticed Wey standing in the corner by the fireplace, watching them intently. Maddy, of course, couldn't see him. Johnny felt like he was in an episode of Quantum Leap. He stood up, took his glass from the coffee table and walked into the kitchen. 

Julia followed him and watched, bristling with barely controlled anger, as he started running water from the faucet into the sink. He hauled open the door of the dishwasher.

"I come with some pretty high credentials, Maddy. I'm not crazy and I'm not dangerous to you, or to Julia. I only want what is best for you and Christopher."

"Why, Johnny? Why?"

Johnny put down his cane in the corner of the kitchen and started getting ready to wash some pots.

"I made a promise to Chris. If anything were to happen to him, I would make sure the two of you were ok."

"How could you make a promise like that to a man you _hardly knew_?"

Johnny scrubbed disconsolately at a pan. Madeleine's eyes suddenly widened in fear and disgust. "Oh, my God." she murmured. Frantically she tried to get her brain to slow down and allow her mouth time to catch up. "Oh, my God. You KNEW, didn't you. You _knew_ he was going to get hurt, but you didn't do anything to stop it?"

The enormity of what she said stopped her in her tracks. Johnny turned and looked uneasily at her, unable to answer, but found guilty and condemned to death by his own silence.

"You bastard." she whispered.

Like the coils of a whip unfurling, her arm flickered through the air. Her hand connected with a sharp _CRACK_ against Johnny's left cheek.

Madeleine was horrified. She couldn't remember ever having hit another adult. Was this what she was reduced to? Was this the result of the weeks of agony, starting when she found out about Christopher's latest love affair, going through the process of hiring a private detective, thinking about a divorce; then the attack, her husband slumped in her arms, somewhere between life and death - was this violence the price she was paying now? She watched, mesmerised, as an imprint of her fingers bloomed like an angry red flower on Johnny's face.

Johnny grabbed both her arms, not hard; pulled her to him, and then froze. For one terrible moment she thought he was going to kiss her. His hands made their own marks on the soft cotton sleeves of her blouse, wet and soapy imprints.

He let go.

"Goodnight, Madeleine," he said quietly. It took a moment for her to realise that she was being dismissed.

oOo

****

A little later on, Johnny climbed upstairs to bed, and tumbled headlong into a vision.

__

His bedroom door. Closed. A hand - small, childish, female - gripping the brass door handle in his vision, just as his own hand - large, mature and undeniably male, gripped it in real life. He watched as the hand turned the doorknob slowly, secretively. The scene in the room beyond was revealed to him through the child's eyes.

oOo

Julia Wey was a healthy, well-adjusted nine-year-old girl. As such, she had a healthy, well-adjusted sense of curiosity, a trait shared by billions of children the world over. A trait that could sometimes get them into trouble.

It was very early in the morning. Julia loved this time of day. This was her "Wandering Time", when she could creep round the house pretending she was a Secret Agent, or an International Jewel Thief. It was her special game. She was a pragmatic girl, and saw no reason to stop playing her special game simply because she and Mommy were in a different house now.

Julia crept down stairs. She had learnt to avoid that one - there - that creaked just faintly.

The house was bathed in dawn's first liquid glow. There was a humming sound from the security system, but no matter. It was a type she had disabled many times before in her illustrious career. She crept up to the keypad and pretended to key in a quick succession of numbers, making the "bip, bip, bip!" noises under her breath. She glanced around the kitchen, wishing she had someone to play the game with her so she could watch them goofing around on the security monitor.

One of the work-top lights under the kitchen cupboards had been left on, casting an accusing spotlight on last night's dishes. Tucked into the corner of the kitchen units, something glinted and caught her eye.

Aha, silver! The International Jewel Thief was an expert in antique silver artefacts, and knew a very discreet fence in Switzerland who would make it vanish, paying her handsomely for it, of course. Maybe enough money for another yacht. Or a pony!

Julia picked up Johnny's cane and fingered the strange carving on the top. She had never seen him without his cane. The little girl frowned, holding the cane up under the light. It was heavier than it looked. In fact, it looked...her young mind groped for the right word. It looked lonely. Useless. Julia did not exactly feel that Johnny was missing his cane, but more that the cane itself was missing Johnny; for without him, it had no purpose. 

The International Jewel Thief was a criminal of great nobility. No, she would not steal this magnificent article, not this time. Instead she would perform an act of the greatest selflessness and, risking capture and imprisonment, would return the cane to its rightful owner.

Then, all would once again be right in the world.

Julia mounted the stairs and walked the corridor to the bedroom at the end. The cane thudded dully on the carpet runner, keeping pace with her. She turned the brass doorknob and went in. Johnny was in bed. 

Oh. Mommy was there, too. Good.

Madeleine and Johnny slept soundly, unaware, sprawled untidily right where they had fallen. Light from the morning sun had started to try and claw its way in through the cracks around the edges of the curtains. 

Julia crept into the room, tiptoeing over and around the clothes on the floor, tutting in disgust. How was it grown-ups could throw their stuff down just however they pleased, but kids always got bawled out for it?

Gingerly, she stepped up to Johnny's side of the bed and touched him lightly on his naked shoulder. He stirred.

"Johnny? Johnny? Look! I've brought you your cane."

She was gratified to see Johnny's eyes blink open and shine in the encroaching sunlight. He turned and, without thinking, still doused in the dark liquid of sleep, gripped the handle of his cane.

Now, at last, they were linked again. From his ringside seat somewhere in Johnny's future, Christopher Wey had his own vision, and he looked. Looked at his wife, asleep in the bed of another man. Looked at his child, smiling proudly at another man; looked at what should have been his life, being lived by another man.

Wey stared at the battered silver knob in his hand, its intricate carvings dulled and besmirched by time and misadventure. Another little dent wouldn't hurt it, surely? 

Wey threw the cane head to the ground with all the strength his wizened arms could still muster. His eyes blazed with rage from beneath his shabby cowl, and then suddenly the light seemed to fade from them. He looked like a corpse, newly dead.

Johnny Smith snapped out of his vision, his own eyes wide with panic and guilt. The door handle was still in his hand, unturned. 

His whole world had stopped turning for a few moments, too.

oOo

Johnny had stumbled across his own future again. Funny how I can always see how it will turn out with WOMEN, huh? he thought bitterly. Would the world really stop turning simply because I find myself a little piece of comfort and warmth to cling onto?

He was a bit disgusted with his vision, realising how sleeping with Madeleine could jeopardise his relationship with Christopher. What would the consequences of that be? Johnny mentally rewound and watched the vision of himself and Maddy tangled together over and over again, searching for clues. How on earth does it happen? When does it happen? The vision had scared him, like waking from a dream but still believing it to be true. 

Johnny sat down on his ancient wooden office chair in the basement, having decided not to try and sleep yet. He put the cane to one side. 

Yes, he admitted mournfully, Madeleine was an attractive woman. He remembered the feeling of her breath when he had gripped her arms to prevent her from hitting him again. Under other circumstances perhaps he might have day-dreamed a little about her, but not now. There were way too many stones to stumble over on _that _rocky road. Johnny Smith grinned a wry little grin at the idea of another affair with a feisty, argumentative, messed-up, married woman. Oh no, not again. Once bitten, John Smith, twice shy.

His vision had shown him a future that he had to change. But he wasn't going to pretend that a little part of him didn't regret it.

Reassured by the strength of his own resolve, all thoughts of sleep sent packing, he turned on his laptop computer. At least he had plenty to do to keep his mind off his baser instincts. He felt safe down here in the basement, like an animal gone to ground, or hibernating until warmer weather turned up again.

Johnny was using his computer to search for articles, sites and pages under the heading "surviving brain trauma". He had decided that he needed to know if there were others like Wey and himself out there. Right now, he would take any help he could get.

oOo

****

Sarah Bannerman was struggling. She was not physically a weak woman, but the box she carried was very heavy. Not only in terms of its weight. Its contents exhausted her emotionally, too.

It got heavier and more unwieldy with every step she took from her car to Johnny's back porch. JJ stood patiently by the front door, watching her.

Eventually, the box was dumped unceremoniously on the bar in the kitchen. "Coma, research, treatments, buckets of ice, snake oil, fad cures. Everything I could find. All there. Could I have a drink of water, please? God, my attic's like a furnace today."

"I appreciate you doing this, " said Johnny. He patted Sarah's shoulder affectionately and was struck by a vision of her, sitting on an old packing carton in her attic. She was fingering the contents of the box now on Johnny's kitchen bar, and she was crying steadily. Johnny flinched. 

"Don't worry," said Sarah, apparently unaware of his vision. Or perhaps pretending. "I'll make sure you pay me back! Where is Madeleine anyhow? I'd really like to meet her."

"Uh - in the rose garden. I think."

"You gonna come out? You haven't seen JJ for at least a week. Not since the marathon."

"Yeah. I'm coming."

Johnny watched Sarah follow their son out towards the garden. The whole house seemed so different with people, particularly children, in it. As though the building had been asleep, barely breathing, waiting for something to bring it back to life again.

The two women introduced themselves. "Is that your son? JJ?" asked Madeleine.

"Yes, he's eight. Well, nine soon, actually."

"Nearly the same age as Julia, then." There was a comfortable gap in the conversation as the women stood together on the back patio, watching their children, seeing the similarities and the differences between them like mothers do the world over. Men compare their cars; women, their children.

"Does JJ look more like his father?" asked Madeleine. "I don't see an awful lot of you in him."

"Ah, well.." said Sarah, before being distracted by Johnny's arrival under the arbour.

John Smith was surprised by how life just trundled along, regardless of how, for him, normality seemed to have been put on hold and was listening to piped music. Watching the kids in the garden was a diversion, a fast getaway car from a heist gone badly wrong.

"Hey!" he said, holding up a plastic bottle of cheap soda from the local supermarket. "Anyone want to try my world famous homemade lemonade? Mom's original recipe! Julia, JJ - get me some cups from the kitchen please? Thanks. Hey ladies, you thirsty?"

****

He caught Sarah's eye and smiled lopsidedly. He hadn't done that in a while. In spite of herself, her heart missed a beat. 

In fact, Sarah Bannerman was still putting a brave face on the whole issue of her and Johnny. Johnny was getting closer to JJ, who would at some stage need to be told where he "came from". She figured that it was this that had been making Johnny so preoccupied. It was taking its toll on Walt too. He was trying hard not to badger her about having another baby, but she could sense his futility sometimes when he opened the bathroom cabinet and saw her contraceptive pill there. It was as though someone was bullying him and he was trying to do the decent thing - turn the other cheek instead of fighting back.

Sarah and Walt had loosely agreed that the time to tell JJ about his father would be when the boy started asking them about the facts of life. That would mean he was old enough to understand the mechanics of it. Sarah had done a lot of reading on adoption and artificial insemination to see how other parents had handled it. In all cases, honesty was the best policy. 

But Walt was behaving like a man under sentence of death, scared his relationship with his son would fall apart when JJ knew the truth about Johnny. Sarah and JJ were Walt's rock in a stormy sea - something to cling onto, but also maybe something to split his bows apart and send him sinking to the bottom.

Would having a baby with Walt really be the right thing to do under these circumstances? Johnny was still on his own. More so than ever before in his life, even with Maddy and Julia living in the big old house with him. Sarah saw a tension between them. She wondered briefly if they had slept together, then threw the thought out like dirty water, ashamed of it. It was none of her business. 

The woman's husband was in a coma for crying out loud - you didn't just leap into the arms of the first decent guy who comes along.

Realising the terrible irony of what she had just thought, Sarah flushed deeply. Madeleine saw, and wondered why.

Johnny poured lemonade. 

Wey wished he could drink some.

Everyone sat quietly in the late Vera Smith's award-winning rose garden, watching each other. 

Johnny looked over at Wey, standing forlornly in the centre of the garden, clutching his cane head like an amulet. Wey was fixated on his woman and his child, unable to take his gaze off them, not wanting to miss a single second of what was going on. Johnny looked over at Sarah and JJ together and felt a sudden depth of understanding, even compassion, for what Wey was feeling. He had no personal regard for Christopher Wey, a man with a charmed life that he had lost through his own stupidity rather than, as in Johnny's case, a car crash. Wey had no one to blame but himself. But Johnny had a better-than-most understanding of what the man was feeling now, and couldn't hate him for that.

Each of them was busily mining a rich, deep vein of sadness.

oOo

As soon as Christopher Wey's condition was stabilised and his head wounds more or less healed, Johnny had him moved to a private institution near to the Maryland Science Centre. The building overlooked the Inner Harbour, the National Aquarium and the World Trade Centre. He told Julia that his research had shown him they had superior long-term care facilities, and she didn't question his decision. It was much easier to let Johnny handle anything like that.

It had taken Johnny two and a half weeks of patient searching to find the place. He finally recognised the view from the window in the vision he had shared with Wey. 

Johnny paid off Wey's extensive medical bills without telling Madeleine, who was still to shell-shocked to have much idea of what was going on anyway. She allowed Johnny to handle everything. He continued to pay for round-the-clock maintenance on the lifeless man in the hospital bed. It wasn't from any sense of pity or shame that he did this. Until he knew more about what was going to happen in the future, Johnny had to re-create the exact circumstances of Wey's reawakening as closely as possible. He'd seen enough Star Trek re-runs to know that he had already "messed with the time line", and now he had to try and deal with the fallout from that.

At the same time, the dining room in his house was being transformed into a sort of office to deal with his mail. There were deliveries of extra telephones, a fax, copier and filing systems. Brown gunny sacks of post were everywhere. Meals were taken crowded around the bar in the kitchen, or eaten off knees in the living room. More often than not, Johnny ate alone in the basement. When he remembered to eat at all. 

The basement was a haven of relative quiet and security for Johnny. He had become accustomed to solitude, and found that it was hard to do without it now. He needed to escape down there and be surrounded by smells and sights, and sometimes even visions, from his childhood. Maddy knew that the basement was Johnny's retreat and never intruded. 

The data base of head-injury survivors and comatose patients that he was compiling grew daily. He couldn't ask Maddy for help in keeping track of these, so he developed his own, rather haphazard, coded filing system on his laptop. He was like an obsessed collector, searching for and acquiring specimens from all over the country. Each one he assigned a nickname. There was JENNY, a woman in her mid thirties, car crash. Comatose for 7 weeks. JORDAN, late 50s, heart attack, 5 months. JEREMY, 27, construction industry accident, 12 weeks. JOSIE, 19, ecstasy overdose, 15 months. There were more. Many more. It was a sad litany to the American way of life - how many different ways there were in which to blow your mind.

One sub group was carefully placed apart from the rest. These were those poor unfortunates who's injuries most closely resembled his own. An anonymous hacker somewhere in Georgia was working for him, dipping into their medical records to discover whether they too had had a head injury earlier in their life. The work was slow, frustrating Johnny. But he was learning to be a patient man.

oOo

Over thirty-six thousand blocks of granite, originally quarried in Maine, went into the building of the Washington Monument.

It was hollow inside. Wey thought it might be possible to climb the steps, but not safe. It was a credit to the abilities of the builders that the Monument was still upright at all. One side of it was blackened with a fine coating of cinder. The original marble cladding had been cleanly blown off and lay in shattered lumps around the base of the monolith. The whole thing smelt like wet cement powder.

A mixture of black and white dust coated everything. The scars on Wey's face were tattooed by dust under where the new skin had started to grow. The white dust was like talcum powder, soaking up the moisture in the world. This sweaty armpit of a world.

Wey stood at the bottom of the Washington Monument, gazing upwards until it made him feel giddy. He hadn't eaten for two days and that didn't help. He leaned his forehead against the cold stone blocks and was faintly surprised to see drops of water appearing in the dust by his feet. Sometimes a man becomes so accustomed to despair that he fails even to recognise his own tears.

The Monument was a symbol for Wey. It looked to him about the same size as the task he was trying to accomplish.

How on earth am I supposed to make an impact on all this? he thought helplessly. And what will happen to me if I do? Will I never wake up? Will I die in my sleep from pneumonia in a bleak Baltimore hospital room, in the prime of my life, so many things left undone, never having seen Maddy and Julia again? Literally, never having known what hit me?

Wey sank slowly to his knees in front of the obelisk, as though acknowledging its superiority once and for all. Tears streamed down his dusty face, leaving silvery streaks. He didn't know it, but he was sinking deeper and deeper into the hopeless depression that so often afflicts post-coma patients. 

oOo

Paulo Cerranti started to surface.

It wasn't the same as the snatch-and-grab back into consciousness that Johnny Smith had experienced. For one thing, there was a lot less of his brain left to wake up, so things didn't really happen in the same order. His eye moved, looked, but did not open. There were tremors in his fingertips. His ECG perked up slightly.

The hospital orderly with the expensive gambling habit watched the doctors discussing Cerranti, pretending to mop up a non-existent mess in the corridor opposite. When he'd heard enough and the right set of circumstances existed, he took off early for a break and placed a long-distance call on his cell phone.

"Mr. Smith? Its me. Look - its happening. He's coming to. Yeah. Yeah. No - they reckon any time now. What do you want me to do?"

The young man stubbed out his cigarette by scraping it against the brick wall of the hospital yard and threw the butt into some bushes, listening intently to his instructions on the phone. 

oOo

Johnny and Dr. Weizak flew down to Springfield again the following week. Johnny joked about frequent flier miles, but Sharon Weizak looked seriously at him and said, "What exactly are you going to do, Johnny?"

"I don't know." he admitted, staring out of the airplane's oval window.

"Oh. Right. I see. You know, for some reason I had thought you were compiling this list of people with head injuries for a PURPOSE. I thought there was a reason for your getting me on an airplane at a time in the morning when I would normally be on my first coffee and cigarette of the day, contemplating a leisurely shower and breakfast. But instead, you're flying me half way across the country and pulling me into a second-rate care facility for the mentally non-existent!"

Johnny looked at Weizak, figuring she must be suffering from caffeine deprivation.

"I want to know if Cerranti can experience visions the same as I can." he said patiently. "I just have no real idea how to find out. Doesn't look like he's in any sort of condition to give me a running commentary. Anyway, this place isn't second-rate. It's costing me a fortune."

Johnny pulled up a moulded plastic chair next to Cerranti's bed. Trying not to look at the man's face, he gently took his hand in his own.

  
Paulo was drifting off into the lightest kind of sleep. He was having what might have been a dream, or maybe it was the echoes of the vision he was sharing with Johnny Smith, reverberating off the inside walls of what remained of his skull.

He rocked and swayed gently in a small wooden boat. He had been put on his back, with something he had no name for grasped in his hands. He was very weak - maybe dying, maybe on the cusp of being asleep, maybe only hurt. He might even have been in a coma. He had a vague sense of urgency, as though he was supposed to be doing something but couldn't quite remember what it was. He had walked into a room and stopped in his tracks, looking around, thinking - what am I here for? What was it I was about to do?

Paulo dreamed steadily on, as other men breathe. Johnny's eyes closed slowly.

Johnny Smith was in Paulo's dream. Johnny Smith would ALWAYS be in his dreams now, right up until he died, drowning slowly as his lungs filled up with his own blood, one Christmas Eve a few years in the future. 

There was a great deal of pain. His grip was faltering. His legs were cold and unresponsive - perhaps they had already died, and were waiting for the rest of the body to figure it out and catch up. 

Paulo's point of view shifted and he _became_ Johnny. 

__

Moving away from the prone figure in the little boat, stumbling over the rough ground, faltering along the banks of the lake. Using his cane one last time to keep himself upright, exhausted, tearful, frightened. Little-boy scared. Bitten off more than you can chew this time, buddy boy.

He comes to a tiny beach he recognises. Moosehead Lake. Sand, shingle, wave-worn pebbles crunching under his boots. Awkwardly, Johnny splashes out shin-deep into the water. Gripping the bottom of the cane in both hands, the knob looking like a small, vicious silver club. Twisting his upper body round, his spine creaking with the effort, veins standing up in his throat and forehead. Johnny holds the cane like a baseball hitter preparing to swing and in one smooth unwinding movement, launches the cane out towards the centre of the lake. Stands and watches it spin lazily, end around end, pleased with the strength of his cast. It flies for a moment, then falls. It floats. But the silver knob is too heavy and it sinks, headfirst, out of sight.

Johnny Smith opened his eyes again. _Ah, _he thought with a kind of serenity. _NOW I get it._

oOo

To be continued, if people would like me to. Please let me know what you think.


End file.
